savior
by decrescence
Summary: "I should have protected you. All those times… I wish I had protected you." — written for SasuSaku Month 2013.


It was war at its darkest hour.

Screams ripped through the air as bodies fell and hit the ground with empty thuds, to become one with the earth that they had once risen from. Blood was now a scent and a color, staining everywhere that was humanly possible—the wind that kissed the shinobi's cheeks, the dirt beneath their tired feet, and their faces, the faces of both the fighting and the fallen.

Sasuke pressed a hand over his right eye, clenching his teeth at the pain. His Mangekyou Sharingan had been at work for far too long, and the corners of his vision were slowly becoming tainted with black and deep red that matched the various gashes along his arms. Every part of his body hurt, but he'd never dare to admit it. He had to keep fighting.

Another yell sounded, and a flash of pink darted in front of his undefended stance, slender arms outstretched and green orbs blazing. He knew who she was, even when her face was cloaked in red-tinted darkness that wasn't really there.

"_**Sakura!**_" The name fit his lips perfectly, but he didn't know why it sounded so panic-stricken, as if he was yelling himself.

Then there was a shriek, and Sasuke saw blood.

Her blood.

_Sakura's_ blood.

Sakura gripped her side and dropped to her knees, grimacing. The redness immediately soaked her fingers, her hands, and she pulled them away and slammed them onto the dirt below her instead, shifting her position to support herself on all fours.

Sasuke rushed to his pink-haired teammate quickly, without even remembering choosing to do so, but his actions were met with an unsteady shove in the opposite direction the moment he kneeled down beside her.

"Leave me," He heard Sakura say in a strangled voice. Her shoulders shuddered as she attempted to force herself to her feet. "Leave me, Sasuke-kun, Obito is your—_our_—main priority!"

Sasuke nodded curtly and turned away, his feet moving on their own. He didn't quite agree, but his veins were pulsing with something new, and he suddenly yearned to taste blood, so he ran.

More screams exploded around him, and more bodies dropped, motionless forever. The faint haze of blonde he spotted in his peripheral vision had now disappeared.

He took a burst of speed, focusing his eyes on Uchiha Obito, wanting to see the look of terror on his face when he struck. Instead, he saw nothing but a horrible red color.

A shout of his own vibrated in his ears as a tangled string of words he could not understand. He still couldn't see anything besides red, red,**red**, but he _could_ feel intensely burning fury and smell horror that he knew was caused by him. He smirked; he could also taste victory like it was the only thing he wanted.

"Sasuke-kun!"

That was his name, wasn't it? Someone was calling him, but no one was there. Or perhaps someone was there, and they were just invisible. How should he tell them he couldn't answer?

"_Sasuke-kun!_"

There it was again. The voice was strangely melodic, although it sounded as if it was on the brink of hysteria. Why was the person so upset?

"Stop, please, Sasuke-kun, stop…"

Thin arms looped under his own from behind, and Sasuke froze. For a while, he remained that way, still and unmoving like the corpses that lay upon the ground. Like the corpse that lay beneath him.

He blinked.

When he opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was a wide semi-circle of a fusion of black and scarlet flames. The second thing was a bloodied face on the dirt, distorted beyond imagining and unrecognizable. Beneath the crimson, the face's eyes were closed.

"Stop," The voice breathed against his back, and this time, Sasuke recognized it. "It's over."

He felt his fist reform and raised it again, but a hand wrapped around his wrist, stopping it. He glanced over his shoulder at Sakura, half-expecting to see tears but was met with a bittersweet smile instead.

"He's long gone," She said softly, moving her battered hands to both of his and gently pulling so that he faced her. "You can't kill him twice, you know."

Sasuke's head dropped to Sakura's shoulder, and he frowned. "I know," He whispered against her neck. "But he wounded so many people and took so many lives, and…"

_He hurt you._

"I'm okay," She murmured, reading his mind. "And you're okay too."

"Maybe," He answered, and then he folded her into his arms, half-smiled once despite himself, and let everything fade to black.

.

.

.

With her eyes closed and face relaxed, Sakura looked as if she was sleeping against a bed of snow, but every time the heart monitor beside her suddenly fluctuated or increased in speed, and her features adopted a pained expression, Sasuke was reminded that she was in pain—and that hurt him more than any wound he recalled suffering from.

Although he had opened the windows of the small hospital room hours earlier so she could get some fresh air, the atmosphere was thick with a medical smell, antiseptic perhaps, and his head panged from a headache, but he barely noticed it. His stiff posture made him look unnatural while sitting on the wooden chair next to Sakura's bed. He was too afraid to move.

Perhaps he should be used to seeing people injured by now, with everything he had gone through, but he wasn't, especially since the person lying upon the white sheets was Sakura, and it was his fault that she was there.

They had fought alongside each other, with Naruto close at hand, during the majority of the final battle against Madara and Obito, covering for and protecting one another from enemy attacks at every second. If only he had moved faster, Sasuke mused regretfully, he could have rescued her from the Ten Tails jinchuuriki, or even taken the blow himself. But it had been Sakura who tried to rescue him and suffered the wound in his place, jumping in front of him last minute to shield him from harm.

He silently wished their roles had been reversed. He would have been much happier it if he were the one injured, and Sakura was sitting at his bedside, watching over him like always.

Suddenly, he took her hand in his in an abrupt motion, his face warming, and for a moment, he was glad she wasn't awake to see his embarrassment. Sakura's hand felt like a child's against his own, and even though he knew better than to think of her as fragile, he instinctively gripped it harder, more protectively.

"Sorry," He heard himself say, in a tone that sounded unfamiliar. "I should have protected you. All those times… I wish I had protected you."

Sasuke felt his voice crack, and he realized he wasn't just talking about their recent battle. He pressed Sakura's hand to his mouth gently and whispered against it, "Thank you."

Then he closed his eyes, mimicking Sakura's dreamlike state, and didn't see her lips curve into a small smile.


End file.
